Boeing 747 Incident - 1990's????
 

Hi there, wonder if anyone can help me. My hubby has seen a video in the past of a 747 (possibly?) over Paris (possibly?) performing extreme manouevres - almost looping and rolling due to fly-by-wire failure (possibly?) before the Captain regained control. Could I be anymore vague? :confused: Apparently it's quite impressive.

Anyone - hope it rings a bell with someone - please let me know if there is a link anywhere to this - I have searched on the internet (air disasters etc.)

ps: we know it's not the Airbus accident at the Paris airshow.

Cheers!

Tarom A310??

A310 isn't fly-by-wire.

I think it was an Air France A320. I remember seeing film of the incident. Trouble is, I can't remember where or any of the other details. :suspect:

Please remember how vague details are - all factors as POSSIBLE so any variations welcome!

:p

I'm pretty sure it was TAROM who did a tail stand over Paris in an A310 but it was nothing to do with a fly-by-wire failure, just mishandling I think. The A310/300s have done quite a few tailstands after mishandled go-arounds resulting in three hull losses, one at Thai and two at China Airlines.

Guess Hand Solo is correct.

Almost another loss by INTERFLUG at SVO.

747 isn't FBW either.

Can't help further, sorry.

It's the Tarom one that was videod. Quite spectacular. Now apologise to the Queen of the Skies please- 747s don't do any such disgraceful behaviour! Full retraction needed- not a 747!

..erm, 300/310 don't do that either.

If they are handled correctly;)

A link to the Tarom 94 incident description (in French):
Le 24 septembre 1994 a 12H 45 le pilote du A310-325 perd le contrôle de l'avion en arrivant à Orly face Ouest.
L'avion pique sur la ville de Villeneuve le ROI. A 240 mêtres du sol, le pilote réussit a redresser l'avion

Luc

Almost a loop is very exaggerated.

"During the approach to Paris Orly, in good weather conditions, the aircraft suddenly started to climb adopting a steep pitch attitude and stalled. The crew managed to recover control of the aircraft and came round to land."

Seem to remember the captain was a former BAC 1-11 driver and the trim button on the A-310 was in the same position where the autopilot disconnect is on the BAC 1-11. Reverting to old airplane habits led to full nose-up trim on the A-310.

http://www.bea-fr.org/docspa/1994/yr...-a940924a.html

Here are the conclusions for those who want the short version.

"# The flight crew was properly licensed to conduct the flight. A third pilot undergoing familiarization was in the observer's seat.
# The meteorological conditions were excellent.
# The aircraft was normally certified and maintained. No non-availability of equipment (with the exception of the FDR) was noted. Ground checks after the incident, and subsequent flights of the aircraft showed no evidence of any operating anomaly.
# The Captain, at the controls, started an automatic approach.
# Approach control asked the aircraft to shorten its path, which led to ILS interception closer to the runway than provided for by standard procedure.
# According to the systems logic, the glide, encountered before the localizer, was not automatically captured . The Captain then disconnected both automatic pilots, leaving the auto-throttle in operation.
# An altitude of 4,000 feet was selected before establishment of the aircraft on ILS as go around altitude. The go around altitude in the procedures is 2,000 feet.
# When flaps were selected at 20 degrees, the speed was slightly greater than VMAX, which activated speed protection, leading to reversion of VS mode to LVL CHG mode.
# Due to the altitude selected being greater than that of the aircraft, the auto-throttle commanded an increase in thrust. The pilot maintained the aircraft on descent.
# He accidentally caused the trim to its electrical stop at thirteen degrees nose up, which put the aircraft in a totally out of trim situation.
# To counter the effect of THS deflection, he moved the elevator control to its mechanical stop of fifteen degrees nose down, by effort applied on the control column.
# A sudden increase in thrust was commanded manually.
# Under the effect of the additional force, the aircraft pulled up rapidly. The pilot continued to counter by continuous effort on pitch and by temporarily holding the thrust levers in the idle position. He neither corrected trim, which remained on pull-up stop nor disconnected the auto-throttle.
# The aircraft took a path with a very steep slope, with roll angle reaching extremely high values. It climbed to an altitude of 4,100 feet and minimum speed recorded was 35 kt. Alpha-trim protection reduced the THS deflection by four degrees.
# Under the effect of strong drift on full and rapid rolls, the angle of attack sensors were disturbed, which led to automatic disconnection of the two pitch-trims. The auto-throttle was inhibited for the same reasons.
# Due to the dynamic of the aircraft's movements, the stall warning and the stick shaker did not function in a preventive manner.
# The flight crew regained control of the aircraft after the stall."

Yeah, that's the story. Tarom wasn't the only lucky one. Like I wrote, Interflug did it twice with autopilot engaged. They survived, others didn't.

The Canadian TSB made a quick review of several A310 high pitch incidents in their investigation report
of another Tarom incident above the Quebec region on March 1st, 1995.
Aviation Occurrence Report - Altitude Related Event
- Uncontrolled Deviation - TAROM Romanian Air Transport

Luc

Thanks all for your responses - and please excuse my ignorance for thinking it was a 747 or indeed F-B-W.

It is established that it was:

Tarom A310-325
Reg: YR-LCA
on Sept 24th 1994

BUT despite my efforts am still unable to find the video of what other people have described as 'spectacular'.

Any more ideas?

I recall film of the Tarom A310 incident was shown on television news at the time. I haven't seen this particular footage on the Internet in more recent times, many such films are around somewhere so it's possibly just not available any more.

Yes they are!
They have wires that go from the bottom of the control column to the tail and wingtips. That's year 2000BC compliant!

Did see the video once on T.V. Not that spectacular because likely most happened before the camera started rolling.

Dont know if this helps,but I seem to remember seeing some short video footage of the incident your talking about.It was shown on a weekly documentary series called"Black Box" aired by Channel 4 /C4 in the UK some years ago.It was a very short clip and did not show the actual stall,but rather the fight by the crew to regain control and level flight.The footage showed the the A310 rolling from side to side at extreme bank angles over the city of Paris taken by some Joe Bloggs guy with a camcorder from the ground.The narrator was alluding to the fact the the A310's automation and flight management systems were fighting against the flight crews actions during their approach.In the same segment of the programme they also showed the infamus footage of the Air France A320 that flew into the trees during a demo flight at a French airshow to drive home his point.
I did tape the complete run of the the series,about 8 or 9 weeks worth at 1 hour a week,BUT!!,,I gave all that stuff to my folks to store in their basement back in Dublin when I moved to the States.Pitty,,their was some real gems on tape too,,Anyone remember the BBC avition documentory "Diamonds in the Sky"???:8 ..Oh well.I did see the "Black Box" series on sell at Virgin Megastore once;but it did look like a much more condensed version than the one aired on TV.
Good Luck with your search.Cheers ...GP9er:ok:

Vaguely - about 1979? Did some of the docu show the inner workings of ATC at Heathrow? Or perhaps I'm confusing it with another similarly named programme from around that period ! :ugh: